Thread: Do you believe in reality shifting / astral projection?

Originally Posted by RockStarHeart

I thought about this too. Why is it that when awake, there isn't some technique to just separate from the body at will. Why am I always forced to deeply relax and get into this special state where I can finally leave my body once 'asleep'.

If you read what the AP community considers some of its most well-respected authors, (e.g., Robert Bruce) the explanations are highly complex, and involve a hierarchy of many different energy bodies, and the instantaneous upload/copy of your full consciousness into the body that eventually is the one that will project. This process, he claims, can only take place while the body is asleep.

I'm keeping an open mind while I'm reviewing the AP material, but seems really clear that the AP proponents come up with increasingly complex explanations, whereas the "it's a dream" explanation remains the simplest and clearest.

For example, they claim that in a real AP OBE, the projector cannot change the environment via expectation like how a lucid dreamer can. If someone has an experience where he can change the environment, the AP logic goes, "well, it wasn't actually AP then." That's the sort of circular explanation/logic that is unattractive about the AP hypothesis.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

For example, they claim that in a real AP OBE, the projector cannot change the environment via expectation like how a lucid dreamer can. If someone has an experience where he can change the environment, the AP logic goes, "well, it wasn't actually AP then." That's the sort of circular explanation/logic that is unattractive about the AP hypothesis.

I don't get that: why is the argument circular? From my perspective there is no circularity, since "Change possible" => "Dream", "Change not possible" => "AP".

Personally, I would argue that it is always possible to effect change, also in an AP. It is just a lot more difficult in an AP than in a dream. (Also, I am increasingly not happy about the names given to all these mental experiences. They all seem misleading to me nowadays).

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I don't get that: why is the argument circular? From my perspective there is no circularity, since "Change possible" => "Dream", "Change not possible" => "AP".

Personally, I would argue that it is always possible to effect change, also in an AP. It is just a lot more difficult in an AP than in a dream. (Also, I am increasingly not happy about the names given to all these mental experiences. They all seem misleading to me nowadays).

The circularity usually manifests something like this:

Person 1: AP is XYZ
Person 2: I disagree, had an AP and experienced PDQ
P1: PDQ is not compatible with XYZ, therefore what you experienced is not AP but (a dream, etc.)
P2: !!!??!???!!??!!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

The circularity usually manifests something like this:

Person 1: AP is XYZ
Person 2: I disagree, had an AP and experienced PDQ
P1: PDQ is not compatible with XYZ, therefore what you experienced is not AP but (a dream, etc.)
P2: !!!??!???!!??!!

I am a little skeptical about 'energy bodies'. I've come across this theory before. That the 'astral' is less dense and so we have a different 'body'. I have looked in the mirror before during a 'projection' and I still looked exactly the same. I wouldn't be so quick to say it was my copied energy body. It could just as well be my mental mind construction of what I expected to see.

There is also this theory about 'the silver cord' connecting the two bodies. I've never encountered this cord before. So either it's hiding from me, or it's just a psychology thing that some people get.

I have experienced the realism thing where the environment is insanely realistic that you can barely tell it apart from waking reality. During that period it's pretty difficult to change things unless you have some tool or prop that you can use (explained about that in my dream tech thread). So this is possibly what they are referring to when they are making the distinction between AP and LD. APs just feel almost exactly the same as if you are awake the only difference is you know you are in that different world. When a AP goes on for more than 5 minutes, that's where things can merge into a scene that is much closer to a LD, and sometimes even lose lucidity which has happened to me in projections longer than 20 minutes or so.

Edit: Robert Peterson in his book did mention when he started to project, that he 'fell out' of his body in the waking state by accident. He did not mean to do this, but if this testimony is true, it means we can separate from our body while completely in the waking state. He is not the only person that has testified this that I know of. Even one of my friends said it happened to them. I also remember testimony of someone that was in a car crash, and they said before the impact they were launched straight out of their body and viewed the crash from outside their body. That was before the impact when completely awake. So we have to take these things into account.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

The circularity usually manifests something like this:

Person 1: AP is XYZ
Person 2: I disagree, had an AP and experienced PDQ
P1: PDQ is not compatible with XYZ, therefore what you experienced is not AP but (a dream, etc.)
P2: !!!??!???!!??!!

I see that simply as a disagreement about the nature of AP, where Person 1 thinks AP = XYZ, whereas Person 2 thinks AP = PDQ. Maybe I am missing some context (I did not read the thread from the start; I'll go back and do that).

EDIT: This thread is great! I don't know why I have been missing out on it before. But now that I'm here, I'll chip in with this bit:

I have traditionally distinguished between dream and AP, and very precisely too, since my dreams never have peripheral awareness, whereas my AP's always have that. This difference is quite staggering, because it makes every dream feel "fake", whilst every AP feels "real". But there is something else at play also, because to me an AP is not "real" simply because there is peripheral awareness. It simply feels like an actual world, exactly like the physical world does, as if there was a special sense for that, beyond the ordinary senses.

Apart from this, I am now leaning towards an understanding of all experiences existing on a multidimensional spectrum without hard borders between anything. Still, my experience of getting into an AP has little in common with my experience of getting into a dream. The latter is entirely without the "physical" whoosh, where the former always has it.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

I see that simply as a disagreement about the nature of AP, where Person 1 thinks AP = XYZ, whereas Person 2 thinks AP = PDQ. Maybe I am missing some context (I did not read the thread from the start; I'll go back and do that).

The situation is that anyone (including large groups of practitioners, "the community of APers," etc.) can assert what they think AP is, the definition is unassailable and anyone who criticizes it or disagrees with it based on personal experience that is contradictory to that definition is shot down, with the only reason given being that they disagree. Any sort of phenomenon that is defined by an unassailable, unquestionable definition, does not qualify in my mind as something serious. Holes in their logic or definition are trivially smoothed over without having to actually engage in a serious discussion.

That, plus the fact that the explanations are highly complex involving multiple hierarchies of various "bodies" and "dimensions," leads me to lean on the side of "it's all a dream."

I had a great LD last night, in fact. I took a moment in this LD to evaluate the environment, its visual vividness, tactile feedback of touching objects, etc. I quickly reached the conclusion that it was indistinguishable from waking existence. And it most definitely was a dream. Vividness and clarity are not valid arguments for (or against) AP.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

The situation is that anyone (including large groups of practitioners, "the community of APers," etc.) can assert what they think AP is, the definition is unassailable and anyone who criticizes it or disagrees with it based on personal experience that is contradictory to that definition is shot down, with the only reason given being that they disagree.

Okay, that is pretty bad. They should at least amicably agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by Voldmer

Okay, that is pretty bad. They should at least amicably agree to disagree.

That was my impression from reading what other people write about their interactions with the APers. I myself have an open mind but I have to say, every time I read the AP material, I just keep thinking, "Sure sounds like a dream!".

Take "you can't change an AP while you can change a LD," for instance. Well, LDers know quite well that dreams are driven by expectation. If there is the expectation that the dream environment will not change, then it won't change.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

That was my impression from reading what other people write about their interactions with the APers. I myself have an open mind but I have to say, every time I read the AP material, I just keep thinking, "Sure sounds like a dream!".

Take "you can't change an AP while you can change a LD," for instance. Well, LDers know quite well that dreams are driven by expectation. If there is the expectation that the dream environment will not change, then it won't change.

This is an interesting issue. First I have to say that in my experience AP's can very well be changed, exactly like the physical world can be changed; it's not set in stone. But, also in my experience, expectations just don't happen in AP's the way they do in LD's. Again, in this respect the AP seems like the physical world (to me), with the LD seeming different. (To clarify, because I'm not sure I expressed this clearly: in ordinary reality I don't suddenly expect stuff to happen, and this goes for AP's too. But in dreams I tend to expect strange stuff rather a lot). This could be taken to indicate that I myself create the difference between the AP and the LD via my tendency to expect. But that would still imply the difference exists. (I apologize if I am not being very clear here, but it's late in the day in my neck of the woods, and my stomach tells me that dinner is nearly overdue).

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Take "you can't change an AP while you can change a LD," for instance. Well, LDers know quite well that dreams are driven by expectation. If there is the expectation that the dream environment will not change, then it won't change.

When you sketch a drawing out you use different shades or intensity of shade in the pencil for example. It seems to me like you are treating AP and LD as separate things. Don't you think there could be some kind of spectrum going on here from one side of the spectrum being fully AP and the other side of the spectrum a pure dream. Not under a polarity but part of the same thing in different degrees. Lucidity works this way, there's isn't fully lucid and non lucid. There's different degrees of lucidity.

Originally Posted by RockStarHeart

When you sketch a drawing out you use different shades or intensity of shade in the pencil for example. It seems to me like you are treating AP and LD as separate things. Don't you think there could be some kind of spectrum going on here from one side of the spectrum being fully AP and the other side of the spectrum a pure dream. Not under a polarity but part of the same thing in different degrees. Lucidity works this way, there's isn't fully lucid and non lucid. There's different degrees of lucidity.

I don't really have any strong opinions, having not had what I would call an AP. I'm just commenting on what I've read about it. But, it's hard to know just what AP is, from the various definitions. Maybe it's one of those "you'll know it when you have one" things?

Originally Posted by RockStarHeart

The assessment and analysis was "concluded" that's very different from "shut down" as such, it just means they were finished with the report. It was based around Robert Monroe's work. Once the report was made it was filed. CIA documents are very different in that they are intelligence reports. So there's no 'erroneous data' as you describe it that comes out of a report. Since it was declassified you can read it for yourself. Fair warning though it does not say that the gateway process is fake it says that it works and that it's real and it describes the science behind it. This is where your cognitive dissonance might kick in a bit if you WANT to believe it's erroneous? The simple fact is they tested it properly. Which is significant. So I just go where the evidence leads myself. I don't know about you but my experience with projections and lucidity, perfectly aligns with that report. There is nothing to suggest otherwise!

Very well, where can I find more of the documents? I cannot really seem to find a document where the effectively discuss it, it seems very out of order on the reading room on the CIA website.

But, why does the review of the project after termination say this: "The foregoing observations provide a compelling argument against continuation of the program within the intelligence community. Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated. The laboratory studies do not provide evidence regarding the origins or nature of the phenomenon, assuming it exists, nor do they address an important methodological issue of inter-judge reliability."

Originally Posted by MoonOfBacon

Very well, where can I find more of the documents? I cannot really seem to find a document where the effectively discuss it, it seems very out of order on the reading room on the CIA website.

But, why does the review of the project after termination say this: "The foregoing observations provide a compelling argument against continuation of the program within the intelligence community. Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated. The laboratory studies do not provide evidence regarding the origins or nature of the phenomenon, assuming it exists, nor do they address an important methodological issue of inter-judge reliability."

They clearly wanted to shut the programme down, whatever their actual reasons for doing so were. The remote viewing projects under different names ran operationally for two decades, getting renewed funding every year through the congress. They got this funding because they yielded results.

In the quote you give there is this: "Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." This is basically their way of saying, even though the facts state that it works, we don't care, because the facts don't matter to us!

Of course, they may very well have continued the projects secretly (these projects were always secretive before).

Originally Posted by Voldmer

They clearly wanted to shut the programme down, whatever their actual reasons for doing so were. The remote viewing projects under different names ran operationally for two decades, getting renewed funding every year through the congress. They got this funding because they yielded results.

In the quote you give there is this: "Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated." This is basically their way of saying, even though the facts state that it works, we don't care, because the facts don't matter to us!

Of course, they may very well have continued the projects secretly (these projects were always secretive before).

It more so seems to me that something powerful was observed, but it wouldn't be appropriate to label it as 'remote viewing'? Not really sure but good points.